


Fadewalker

by The_Jade_Goblin



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, a lot of it, but also angst, but its a happy ending i promise, fenhawke - Freeform, pavellan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 16:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Jade_Goblin/pseuds/The_Jade_Goblin
Summary: Assan left Hawke in the Fade, one of the hardest decision he's had to make since. Fenris isn't taking that for an answer. He would storm the gates of the Black City to retrieve Hawke, and the Inquisitor is inclined to believe he could achieve it.





	Fadewalker

“Save her.” 

Fenris’ plea was desperate, the lost, slightly crazed pain in his eyes hurt the Inquisitor to look at. He did his best to avoid Fenris’ piercing eyes, but found he couldn’t.

That stare was just too intense. So full of pain. The red ribbon he gripped so tightly in his shaking hands was fading, wearing slightly at the edges, but it had been lovingly looked after, and Assan could see the lighter patch of skin on Fenris’ arm where he had worn it, so dutifully, his mark of the commitment and the love he felt for the Champion of Kirkwall.

Everything about Fenris hurt Assan - he was not the tough, unsmiling, dangerous elven warrior Varric had told him about - he was a broken man on the edge of desperation, and it killed Assan to know he had reduced someone to this with his actions. 

“Fenris, elf...she’s gone.” Varric murmured, resting a gentle hand on Fenris’ arm.

He still had the letter he’d written to Fenris - one that had been crumpled into an angry ball and shoved back into the dwarf’s hands the minute Fenris had arrived in Skyhold, before he had gone in search of the Inquisitor. 

Dragged from an important war meeting to face an angry, heartbroken, extremely dangerous glowing elf had not been at the top of Assan’s list of ways he’d like to spend the evening.

He was no good at this sort of thing.

Diplomacy and understanding was one thing, but how did you look into the eyes of a man who’s wife you’d all but killed? In the name of the greater good no less? 

Fenris angrily threw off Varric’s hand, glaring at the Inquisitor.

“You can open rifts! You can walk in the Fade! You have done it once, do it again! Go back there and save her!”

Assan’s eyes bulged in his head. He wanted him to go back to the awful place? The place of horrors and nightmares that kept him awake at night and haunted his every waking moment?

“You want me to what?” he spluttered.

“If you will not help me, at least get me into a rift, I can take it from there!” Fenris said.

“Fenris you can’t be serious!” Varric cried. “That’s suicide!”

 _“I don’t care_!”

“Fenris, the Fade is an ordeal under normal circumstances, but you’d be there physically.” Assan said. “That place is a carnival of horrors, you’d be walking into your worst nightmare.”

“I’m already walking in my worst nightmare.” Fenris replied.

Assan went quiet. 

“Do you suppose I fear anything the Fade has to throw at me, if I am already living the worst possible nightmare I can imagine? A life without her is not a life at all.”

“Fenris...”

“As Inquisitor I can’t knowingly send you to your death Fenris.” 

“ _Please_.” Fenris’ eyes went glassy, and he looked down at the ribbon clenched in his fists. The last desperate attempt. The final effort.

This man was gone long before he had arrived in Skyhold - he was probably gone the moment he’d read Varric’s letter.

He had nothing to lose now. Assan knew he would find a way to kill himself one way or another without Hawke. 

“She -  _Marian_...she’s all I have.” 

Varric stepped forward, about to try and explain to Fenris that Hawke was gone, that there was nothing that could be done, but Assan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

He thought about Dorian, and what he would do if he was in Fenris’ place, and Dorian was stuck in the Fade, left behind and he had lived, faced with the one person who could possibly help, only to have them refuse.

He knew he would do anything to see Dorian safe. He could expect no less from Fenris.

He looked at Fenris as the other elf look up to meet his eyes. 

“I’ll try.” he said. “I’ll take you into the Fade.”

* * *

 

They went to Adamant, to the place where Assan had walked out of the Fade for the second time.

The Anchor crackled with barely controlled Fade energy the closer they got to where the rift they’d escaped through had been.

Inquisition soldiers surrounded the perimeter, ready to face anything threat that came through the rift. 

Assan raised a hand, concentrating hard. The Anchor fizzled, and he snatched his hand back with a hiss of pain. Dorian looked at him worriedly.

“ _Amatus_...?” 

Fenris’ ear twitched at the Tevene endearment, and his gaze moved to the Inquisitor and Dorian briefly. 

“I’m fine. Not used to opening rifts.” Assan dismissed. “Do you think you could stablize it with magic? Be my focus?”

“I’ll do my best. Let me know if it hurts.” Dorian took Assan’s hand with such tenderness Fenris nearly snapped the hilt of his sword in half watching it. 

It reminded him of Marian. Painfully. 

Channelling magic into the Anchor, Dorian held Assan steady as he once again raised his marked hand, and tried to draw on the power of the Fade. He felt it, and he began to pull. It struggled and resisted him, but he only pulled harder.

Gritting his teeth against the resistance, ignoring the painful fizzle of the Anchor, he locked eyes with Fenris, and nodded. Fenris nodded back.

“When I give the word everyone jump forward!” Assan ordered. “Ready... _now_!” 

They leapt, and the rift swallowed them up. They hit the ground with a thud, unlike the first go around. There was no graceful landing this time. 

“And here I’d hoped to not make falling into the Fade a habit.” Varric muttered as he picked himself off the ground and dusted himself off. 

“I’d hoped to not make a lot of things a habit until I met Assan,” Dorian replied crisply.

Fenris took a moment to look around him, and he felt his skin crawl. The lyrium over his flesh was reacting strongly to the energy of the Fade, and they seemed to almost hum in tune with the magic around them. He didn’t like it. 

“This is where you came out of?” he questioned. 

“Yes, just over this ridge here is where we fought the Nightmare.” Assan stumbled forward, always a little disorientated after stepping through the Fade. 

The others followed him. 

“Maker’s Breath…” Dorian whispered. 

The giant corpse of the Nightmare enveloped the entire clearing that Assan remembered from the battle.

Smaller nightmares scuttered around it, nipping at its rotting flesh. The little spiders didn’t bother them as they moved forward, too occupied with their meal.

The Nightmare was bigger than Assan recalled, and he unconsciously shivered as he thought of this great beast looming over him, whispering in his head all his fears and doubts.

That Hawke had managed to kill it was extraordinary. But where was she? 

“Hawke’s staff!” Varric cried, holding up a broken mage’s staff from one end of the clearing. 

Assan heard Fenris inhale a sharp breath at the burnt and broken wood in Varric’s hands.

Assan turned his eyes back to the Nightmare, running his gaze along its bottom where the little nightmares scavenged.

He walked around the corpse, following the line of spiders, until he came across what he was looking for. 

A single hand, sticking out from under the corpse. 

“She’s here! I found her!” Assan yelled. 

The team ran to him, and were quick to follow his orders and attempting to flit the imposing corpse off Hawke’s body.

Dorian pushed with all his magic, and with help from Fenris and Assan, the lifted the body just enough to Varric to pull Hawke out from under it.

The Nightmare corpse fell with a bang behind them as they rushed to Hawke’s side. Fenris cradled her lifeless form in his arms, holding her broken body against his tightly. 

Several minutes of tense silence engulfed the team, the only sound being Fenris’ muffled sobbing. Varric turned away.

Assan wrapped an arm around the dwarf, and reached out for Dorian’s hand. The Tevinter gripped it tightly, eyes glued to the sad scene before them.

Assan sighed heavily.

Too late. 

“…She’s still alive…” Dorian murmured in amazement. 

Everyone, including Fenris, looked up at him questioningly. 

“She’s breathing. Look – Assan pass me a dagger.” 

Dorian came down by Hawke’s body, and held up the dagger to her lips. Fenris stared as the faintest fog formed over the blade. She was indeed breathing. She was alive. 

“She’s alive.” Fenris let out a chocked sound, and turned his stunned gaze to a grinning Dorian. 

“….nris…..?” 

Fenris’ eyes snapped back to Hawke’s face. A tiny frown had formed on her face, though she was still unconscious, her fingers blindly groped weakly in the direction of Fenris’ voice 

“We have to get her to Skyhold, she needs medical attention. Now.” Assan said urgently. “Dorian, can you do something for her on the way?” 

“I believe I can keep her stable until we get back to Skyhold.” Dorian confirmed. 

“Let’s get you out of here Marian.” Fenris murmured, picking up her fragile form in his arms. “I’m going to get you home.”

* * *

 

Hawke heard the sound of birdsong, and for a moment she thought she’d died. Honestly if this wasn’t the Maker’s bosom, again, she’d resurrect just to smack a Chantry sister. 

But birdsong didn’t quite go with the Fade, and so she opened her eyes to investigate.

The light invaded her eyes and they stung, she squinted against the light to see her surroundings. 

She was in a bed. In a stone room. Skyhold? Yes, she recognised the Inquisition’s banner on the wall.

“Hey, Hawke you’re up.” 

She turned her head slowly - her neck screaming in protest - to see Varric look up from his manuscript on the chair next to her bed. She smiled. 

“Varric? That you?”

“You know any other devillishly handsome dwarves?” Varric joked.

“Well, there was this one dwarf in Orlais...”

“Oh har har. Good to see you again too.” 

Hawke chuckled quietly, struggling for a moment to sit up. She heard a whine, and then a great big mabari head plopped itself onto her lap.

She smiled, lovingly scratching behind Asher’s ears. Her trusty mabari. 

But, if Asher was here, then that must mean...

She looked at Varric questioningly.

“He’s with the Inquisitor. You’ve been asleep for a week. I managed to kick him out for a few hours to get some sun.” Varric said. 

“Is he...? Can I...?”

“You feel well enough to get up?”

Hawke nodded. It was a lie, but she had to see Fenris. Using both Asher and Varric as makeshift crutches, she slowly got herself out of bed and shuffled out the door.

Leaning heavily on the dwarf, Varric lead her down the hallway towards the entrance.

She was quite the spectacle to the nobles gathered in the hall, but she paid them no attention as she passed, dressed only in her night shift, leggings and robe.

Her bare feet pattered across the stone. 

She heard the Inquisitor’s voice before she reached them, and as they rounded the corner near the door, she saw his familiar profile on the steps, looking up as he spoke.

A small, deep chuckle hit her ears. Fenris. She was already beaming even before she could see him. 

A wave of cold air from the outside hit her, and she shivered, coming to a halt. Varric looked at her worriedly, and with just a glance suggested she stay where she was.

Varric would bring Fenris to her. Leaning her hand on Asher’s back, Hawke nodded in agreement. Varric went on ahead to the door.  

“Sorry to interrupt Inquisitor, but there’s someone Broody needs to see.” Varric said with a smile.

The Inquisitor looked up, beyond Varric, and smiled when he saw Hawke standing there. Fenris also turned, and Hawke finally saw his face.

Fenris looked like he’d seen a ghost as he stared at her, mouth hanging open and eyes wide.

“Fenris,” was all she said, and then he was running to her. 

It took him less than four strides to reach her, before he was holding her face in his hands, gently, as though she were made of glass. 

“Marian.” he whispered. 

Hawke smiled up at him. “Did I oversleep again?”

Fenris gave a breathless laugh. “Yes, yes you did. But I’ll forgive you as long as you promise to never leave my side like that again.”

“It’s a deal. I missed you Fenris.”

“I missed you too.” then he was kissing her, and her arms wound around his neck, his around her waist. 

The he was picking her up and spinning her around.

Hawke let out a delighted laugh, threading her fingers through his snowy hair and kissing everywhere on his face that she could reach. It felt wonderful to be back in his arms. 

He cradled her gently, holding her in his arms like a bride, and she simply beamed up at him as he leaned his head down to kiss her again, and again, and again. 

“Get a room you two!” Varric laughed.

“Good idea!” Hawke grinned. “Fenris?”

At once Fenris was carrying her back down the hall towards her room. Varric and Assan laughed. 

“We won’t be seeing those two again for a few days,” Varric commented.

“No,” Assan agreed. “But that’s all right. They deserve a break.” 

Varric took out his manuscript, and started to write. This was going in the amended version of  _The Tale of the Champion_  for sure.


End file.
